On the nature of man and disaster.

Unique among animals, humans survive not by superb physical adaptation to our environment, but rather by intelligent, large-scale adaptation of the environment to our needs. We build houses with climate control systems that mimic the environment of sub-Saharan Africa. We safely live in environments where the temperature never rises above freezing and where the level of the sea is higher than the land we farm and build vast cities upon.

Pro/con ethics debate: when is dead really dead?

Contemporary intensive care unit (ICU) medicine has complicated the issue of what constitutes death in a life support environment. Not only is the distinction between sapient life and prolongation of vital signs blurred but the concept of death itself has been made more complex. The demand for organs to facilitate transplantation promotes a strong incentive to define clinical death in a manner that most effectively supplies that demand.